


Reparations

by Onehelluvapilot



Series: The Helping Hands Initiative [2]
Category: Iron Man (Movies), Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen, Guilt, Prosthetics, amputee character, homemade prosthetics
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-15
Updated: 2018-01-15
Packaged: 2019-03-05 07:19:22
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,532
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13382904
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Onehelluvapilot/pseuds/Onehelluvapilot
Summary: Sequel to Human Aspect (You should go read that,  it's like 300 words and this won't make sense without it).Abigail Akindele is called to Stark Tower to meet her hero, and the meeting does not go how she had been expecting.





	Reparations

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks to Mofein for suggesting that I show how Tony reacts to her letter. This is set a few years later, between Civil War and Infinity War, sometime around Homecoming.

Abigail Akindele took a deep breath. She was really actually about to do this. To go into Stark Tower, and not just on some field trip or dare from her friends to try to bluff her way up. She was actually about to go meet Tony Stark. The most famous engineer on the planet (who had also saved it a couple of times). This was bigger than any of her college interviews, any of her sponsor presentations for robotics. This was bigger than meeting Dean Kamen.

She opened the glass door before she could psych herself out enough to make her hand to start shaking. She clutched the strap of her bag with artificial fingers. She’d thrown every other attachment into it, on the ridiculous off-chance that Mr. Stark wanted to see them. Of course he wouldn’t; he made things ten times cooler than this in his sleep. But her satchel made her feel safe, and her hands made her feel prepared. 

“Ms. Akindele,” a woman's voice greeted her from nowhere and everywhere. FRIDAY, she knew, but it still surprised her. JARVIS had greeted her class and her robotics team when they'd come in here for tours years before. “The elevator is to your right. Mr. Stark is waiting for you in his lab.”

In his lab? She was going to get to see Tony Stark’s workshop? Even if nothing else happened in this meeting, it was already one of the best days of her life. The elevator opened onto a technology filled wonderland. She stepped out, not quite believing her eyes. The young engineer wandered between rows upon rows of tools and half finished projects and things that looked like they came from dreams. She couldn’t help from reaching out to touch just a few, feel the familiar cold of aluminum under her fingers, crafted into devices that could change the world.

“Mr. Stark?” Abby called softly as she rounded the corner. The older inventor looked up from where he was bent over something or other and a smile spread over his face. There was grease in his goatee and on his previously white tank top. Unlike her, it seemed like he hadn’t made a single effort to dress up for the meeting.

“Tony,” he corrected, jumping to his feet and extending a hand. It was his right, and he quickly realized his mistake and switched, tossing a wrench to his other hand as he did. “It’s a pleasure to meet you Ms. Akindele.”

“Abby,” she quickly corrected in kind. His grip was a lot stronger than hers when they shook hands, though obviously he wasn’t used to shaking with his left. “And believe me, the pleasure is all mine, sir.”

“No, hey, drop that,” he ordered. “No sirs.”

“Okay,” she agreed, a little surprised. All her life she had heard about Tony Stark’s ego, and now he wasn’t even letting her address him in the way she was expecting to.

“That is a very interesting piece of work,” he interrupted her from her mild starstruck revere, pointing at her prosthetic. “May I see?”

He held out both hands, a look on his face saying that he’d be very careful with her arm, and how could she say no. Bending it at the elbow, she lifted up the metal limb and lowered it gently to rest in his hands. She had on the day to day hand, with its fingers made from wire protector and and forearm of the jointed stand of an old lamp.

“It’s a bit kludged together,” she explained.

“Don’t apologize for your work,” he ordered. “It seems like an amazingly low cost and simple prosthetic. Does it do what you need it to?”

“Not everything,” she replied. “The fingers work well for gripping like this,” she said, turning her arm over and placing a pencil on the undersides of her fingers before closing them over it in unison, “which works pretty well for gripping things like handles, but it can’t do things like doorknobs at all. The thumb doesn’t work for shit. I have other attachments for special tasks.”

“Did you bring them?”

“Y-yeah. You want to see them?” He nodded, and she took her arm back to pull out her other hand attachments. Tony cleared a bit of counter space, and she began to take her scraps of metal and plastic out. 

“Is this one a test tube holder?” He asked, taking one off the table where she put it.

“Yeah. I stole it from the chem lab at my school. It works really well for if I have to hold a long cylinder for a long time without really needing to shift my grip on it. My handwriting is still shitty, but hey, I haven’t burned myself on a soldering iron to date.”

“And what’s that one for?” He asked when she pulled out the spring loaded cable with the clamps that attach it to her bicep and hand.

“Uh, pull-ups,” she admitted. “With cheating, I could do more than anyone else in my gym class. We also used it as the model for our robot’s climber in the 2018 season.”

“Nice,” he praised her with a small chuckle. “If I may ask, wouldn’t it be simpler to get a normal prosthesis than to carry all of this around?”

“Well, yeah, probably. But after the Incident, New York was full of people with worse injuries, and while I was on the waiting list, my friend rigged this up. It worked well enough, and I got used to it. Plus, fake hands, unless they’re really good ones like your gauntlets or the Winter Soldier arm, kind of freak me out. At least this one just looks like metal and plastic parts, not fake flesh. Full arm prosthetics are really expensive too, and my dads are struggling to get by as is.”

“Well, you can help them out with a Stark salary,” Tony said. She gave him a confused look as her brain tried to process what he had just said. “You’re hired,” he clarified with a smile.

“Wait, what?” That’s why he had called her here? To offer her a job? She didn’t know what she had been expecting here, but this was not it. 

“I’ve been using a modified version of Zola’s algorithm to scout for new employees,” he explained. “Your resume for someone your age is about as incredible as possible for someone who isn’t a child prodigy. Stunning letters of recommendation from every single one of your science teachers and team mentors, team captain on your robotics team, and if that wasn’t enough, all of this.” He gestured over her hands spread out over the table. “I’m placing you in charge of the Helping Hands Initiative, to design and deliver high quality prosthetics to those in need.”

“I’m nineteen,” Abby protested, raising two of her hands in surrender.

“SpiderMan is sixteen,” the older inventor retorted. “Ingenuity and drive, which you have shown in abundance, are more important than experience.”

“I hardly think throwing a few scraps together qualifies me to head a project like this…”

“You’ll learn,” he encouraged her. “I’m not going to force you to take the job, but you aren’t going to talk me out of offering it. You can bring other people on to help you. Older engineers, a co-director if you want, I already have someone in mind, but I can’t think of anyone I rather have in charge of this project than you.”

She narrowed her eyes at him, not entirely trusting this. It seemed too good to be true. “This isn’t a pity hire is it?” She asked. “Because I can take care of myself just fine, thankyouverymuch, and I don’t need anyone’s guilt driving them to help me.” She was a little astonished by the words that had just come out of her own mouth. Had she really just talked back like that to Tony Stark, the sass master himself?

“No, this is not a pity hire,” he said soberly. “I don’t feel guilty about what happened to you, because if not for me, you would have lost a helluva lot more than just your hand.” Ah, there was his famous ego. “You want to know the real reason I want to hire you? It’s that letter you sent me, after Sokovia. I got hundreds of thousands of letters, and yours was the only one that didn’t assign blame, though God knows I deserved it. Yours was the only one that suggested a way to make it better, or to start to at least. People like you are the ones we need to run the world. People who only fixate on the past enough to understand the problems that need to be fixed in the future.”

She looked hard at him. There was no lie in his eyes, just sadness and sincerity. He wanted to start making up for his mistakes, and he needed her help in doing so. If she took this job, she could help him, help herself, and help others. It was time to stop letting fear hold her back.

“Okay,” she agreed, holding her head up high. “When do I start?”

**Author's Note:**

> I love comments, like, a lot. Please tell me what you think!


End file.
